Speakers

The speakers are listed in the alphabetical order by last name.

Chiara Angiolini

Researcher at the Law Faculty of the University of Trento

Chiara Angiolini is post-doctoral Researcher at the Law Faculty of the University of Trento, where she participates in the EU FRiCoRe Project, a judicial training project focused on remedies and fundamental rights within the EU. She is Adjunct Professor at the Department of Law of the University of Pisa. She recently published the book Lo statuto dei dati personali. Uno studio a partire dalla nozione di bene (Giappichelli, 2020), in which personal data are conceived as goods but not as objects of property rights.

She got an LLM with honours at the University of Pisa, a PhD with honours at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She was visiting PhD at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and at the Université Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne. She was a visiting Scholar at the Law, Science, Technology and Society Research Group (LSTS-VUB) in Bruxelles, and she worked as a researcher for the Echelle de Communalité project, concerning commons and property rights, at the Institute de Recherche juridique de la Sorbonne. She has authored more than 20 publications; one of them concerns Emergency Remote Teaching and data protection.

Katalin Baracsi

Internet lawyer

Katalin Baracsi is a lawyer specialized in family law and child rights, an internet security instructor-expert, law enforcement trainer. In 2009 she graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Károli Gáspár Reformed Churched University. She has an active relationship with media representatives to make the subject of internet security in the most accessible and comprehensible way. In parallel with the expert work, she worked in the Ministry of the Interior in the Personnel Development Directorate General and then in the National Crime Prevention Council where she also worked in the fields of children and youth and gained a law enforcement trainer qualification. She is a delegate of professional bodies (e.g., the Internet Roundtable for Child Protection, No Hate Campaign Committee), coordinating and making professional materials, programmes (e.g., Safer Internet Program, Mountain Protection, Preventing Crime in the Digital World, Let’s Be Safe for You – Safe Life, Digital Adventure – Together for a better internet), trainings. As a freelancer expert, she is currently working with government, NGOs and ecclesiastic bodies.

Hanka Boldemann

Vice President in J.P. Morgan’s Global Philanthropy team

Hanka Boldemann is a Vice President in J.P. Morgan’s Global Philanthropy team, and is based in Frankfurt, Germany. As part of this work, she manages the firm’s philanthropic commitment to expanding economic inclusion and access to opportunities in Germany and other markets in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. She also leads on the regional development of J.P. Morgan’s global initiative New Skills at Work, which aims to develop, test and scale innovative efforts that prepare individuals at risk of being left behind with the skills they need to be successful in a rapidly changing economy. With a background in business and economics, Hanka previously held different roles in International Development Cooperation. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, she served as employment policy advisor with German Development Cooperation in the Middle East & North Africa.

Natalija Budinski

Teacher of Mathematics at Petro Kuzmjak School, Serbia

Natalija Budinski holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics and works as a math teacher in a primary and secondary school. Her areas of interest are innovation in education, integration of technology, and applying a creative approach to teaching STEM subjects.

Natalija was selected as one of the 300 most innovative Microsoft teachers in the world, two times in a row in 2018 and 2019, so she attended Education Exchange conferences in Singapore and Paris. Several examples of her practice have been awarded by European SchoolNet. Beside teaching math, she is interested in teaching sustainable development goals and supporting girls in pursuing STEM careers. She is an author of several papers dedicated to education which have been published in international journals. She frequently attends international conferences where she shares her innovative ideas with educators from all around world. You can read about some ideas from her practice on her website.

Carsten Busch

President of HTW Berlin – University of Applied Sciences

Carsten Busch studied computer science at TU Berlin. In his doctorate he investigated metaphors in computer science. In 1995 he took up a position as a research assistant and university planner at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Carsten Busch has lectured at many universities, including as a visiting professor in Poznan and Moscow. From 2002 to 2019 he was also a Managing Partner of the Institut für Marken und Medien (Institute of Brands and Media).

In 2006 Carsten Busch was appointed as a professor for the International Media and Computing study programme at HTW Berlin, where he also took over as the Director of the Creative Media research group. He has been the President of HTW Berlin – University of Applied Sciences since April 2019.

Clara Centeno

Senior Researcher, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission

Clara Centeno is a Senior Researcher at Human Capital and Employment Unit of Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

Clara Centeno has carried out since 2001 evidence based socio-economic research on Information Society developments, and the role of ICT and digital competences for socio-economic inclusion. This work has focused on vulnerable groups including migrants, youth at risk, informal carers and unemployed. She has supported with that work the development of long-term care, migrants’ integration, youth, digital and social inclusion and education policies in the EU.

Her current research work focuses on the role of digital competences and the EC’s Framework on Digital Competences (DigComp) for employability of jobseekers and also of workers in employment contexts. This covers areas such as definition of competence needs, assessment of competences and training.

She is also working on the development of teachers’ intercultural competences, in particular, in exploring how policy can contribute to overcome the current barriers to the development of teachers’ intercultural competences.

Check the recent publications:

Borut Cink

Programme Officer at ALL DIGITAL

Borut Cink joined ALL DIGITAL in June 2020 as a Programme Officer. He works on project implementation, fundraising and policy advocacy. He is coordinating Social Hackademy, CDDC Crowddreaming, Open AE, Get Your Facts Straight and DevOps projects.

Before joining ALL DIGITAL, Borut worked for Slovene National Agency for Erasmus+: Youth in Action and European Solidarity Corps as a Programme Officer for Transnational Cooperation Activities and managed communication activities of the National Agency. From 2013 to 2016 he was coordinator of public relations and managing international projects at the National Youth Council. He has also experience in working for public institutions as he worked as a policy advisor at the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia. Working in the civil society sector, especially in youth work, motivated him to develop his skills as a trainer and facilitator in non-formal education. Since 2019 he has also been a quality assessor for Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes in Slovenia.

Borut has more than 10 years of professional and voluntary work experience with civil society organisations. He served as a board member of Young European Federalist in Slovenia and vice president for international cooperation at the National Youth Council of Slovenia. He has extensive experience with project and communications management, event management, policy-making and advocacy.

Borut holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Ljubljana and speaks Slovene, English, and Croatian.

Veronique De Leener

Director of MAKS vzw

Veronique is the founder and director of Maks vzw (Belgium). Maks vzw, established in 1999, has two telecentres and runs all kind of activities in the field of digital inclusion with disadvantaged persons of all ages, using the peer to peer learning and learning by doing methodology. Maks vzw has participated in different European projects as a partner of ALL DIGITAL.

Before working for Maks, Veronique was a director of a VET school for youngsters between 15 and 20 years old (alternate working-studying). From 1982 till 1987, she was a teacher in the same school, teaching Dutch, French, and computer technology. Veronique is also a certified coach.

In 2015-2016, she was a financial controller for ALL DIGITAL, and since 2017 – a member of the Board of ALL DIGITAL.

Raffaele Di Fuccio

CEO, Smarted srl

Raffaele Di Fuccio is the CEO of Smarted. Raffaele Di Fuccio is a biomedical engineer, PhD in the University of Naples – Federico II in Human Mind and Gender Studies. His research interests focus on the advanced teaching/learning technologies and applications; Tangible User Interfeces (TUIs) with a multisensory approach in the education, and on the development of artificial intelligence models and algorithms for classification. He collaborated in many projects in the FP7 program for Xiwrite srl (CONVERGENCE, OPTIMI, N€UROMED) regarding mainly management and coordination issues. In addition, coordinated as Project Manager, an LLP-Comenius project called Block Magic on behalf of Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of Italian National Research Council (CNR). In the 2017 he won the prize of the International ASLERD Student Contest for the best “People Centered Smart Learning Ecosystem” prototype. Nowadays, Raffaele Di Fuccio manages for the SMARTED srl three EU Funded project in the Erasmus Plus Programme (ACCORD, DoCENT, ALEAS).

Fiona Fanning

Director of European Affairs, Certiport, a Pearson VUE business

Fiona Fanning is Director of European Affairs for Certiport, a Pearson VUE Business, responsible for policy and advocacy in Europe and beyond. Previously Fiona served as Secretary General of CEPIS, the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies, running this pan-European organisation for a number of years. In her capacity as European Affairs Manager of ECDL Foundation, Fiona oversaw European policy, strategic advocacy, communications and ran the national operations in Belgium.

As part of her work in advocating for the promotion of digital skills and certification in Europe, Fiona holds the position of co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the European e-Skills Association (EeSA), a community of stakeholders supporting the development of digital literacy and e-skills in Europe. She is also an advisory board member to ALL DIGITAL.

Her previous roles include Director of Beyond Words Translation Services, Director of Disaster Relief with the America Red Cross, and Project Manager for an international relief and development agency in West Africa.

Panos Fitsilis

Full Professor at University of Thessaly

Professor Dr. Panos Fitsilis is full Professor at University of Thessaly, Greece. Previously Prof. Fitsilis was Professor at University of Applied Sciences of Thessaly (UAST), visiting professor at Innopolis University, Kazan, Russian Federation, and Lecturer at Hellenic Open University (HOU).

Prof. P. Fitsilis has extensive project management experience with the development and deployment of large IT systems and extensive management experience in various senior management positions such as: Director of School of Business and Economics at UAST, Vice President of UAST Research Committee, Head of Project Management department at UAST, Director of Research Laboratory «Business Information Systems and eCommerce», Head of Business Unit (BU) at Intrasoft International, a large international IT company, etc.

He has worked in more than 60 research or commercial IT projects, in various roles (programmer, project manager, quality engineer, BU manager, consultant). He is the author of four books and more than 100 papers published at scientific journals and international conferences. His research interests include Smart Cities, Business Information Systems, Social Media Applications, Internet of Things, Software Project Management, etc.

Currently, he is a member of the working group for “Smart and Viable Cities” at Hellenic Standardization Organization ELOT, member of ITU initiative “United for Smart Sustainable Cities” (U4SSC), member of Regional Board for “Research and Innovation” for the Region of Sterea Ellada, Greece, evaluator at European Commission Horizon 2020, etc.

His research interests include smart cities and factories, business information systems, software project management, software engineering, etc.

Gabriela Ford

Director of EOS Romania Foundation

Gabriela Ford (Barna) started her career with the British Council in Romania. In 1999 she established EOS Romania Foundation with a vision to support digital inclusion in Romania. Over the past 20 years, Gabriela has worked in the field of ICT in education, ICT for social development, digital inclusion and monitoring and evaluation with a special focus on ICT for development. She also worked in an advisory capacity to the Ministry of Education in Romania, making a significant contribution to the introduction of the first ICT optional curriculum for secondary and high school students. Gabriela has worked as consultant in various European and Global programmes in the field of ICT4D and lifelong learning.

Gabriela has been involved in the telecentre movement for more than 20 years. Gabriela and EOS were one of the parties involved in the initial formation of the ALL DIGITAL (then Telecentre-Europe) community in 2007. She served as a Board member in 2010-2014, 2019-present, and as Co-Chair of the Board during 2010-2012, working in some of the most engaging and successful digital inclusion projects and campaigns in Europe.

Guillermo Gil Aguirrebeitia

Emerging Businesses – TECNALIA Research & Innovation

Guillermo Gil graduated in Telecommunication Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. In TECNALIA, the biggest Spanish Research Technology Organisation, he works in the designing and development of new, emerging opportunities based on the application of advanced digital technologies, such as Artificial intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data in the domain of Smart Cities, energy, mobility or logistics. His focus is the development, design and implementation of complex opportunities, resulting from the combination of digital disciplines applied to the needs of clients from different sectors, both in the national market and, for more than six years, in the Latin America market -mainly, Colombia. During the last five years, he was director of the Digital Knowledge Cluster, the multidisciplinary community composed of the specialists in digital technologies of TECNALIA of about 450 people, with the goal to foster the digital value proposition of the different businesses of the firm, to drive the specialization to key areas and to enhance the scientific and technological capacities of the community.

Guillermo has worked his career mostly in the field of ICT R&D with strong background in strategy design & implementation, business development, marketing and team development. He participates in national and international committees and working groups related to the ICT and Information Society development. He has promoted, coordinated and participated in many research projects at local, national and international public funding frameworks, including EU Framework Programs since 1992. He is also lecturer of the University of Deusto since 2019, Faculty of Engineering; lecturer of the University of the Basque Country for the Digital Manufacturing master degree since 2019; lecturer for seven years of the Master in Management for Business Competitiveness and regular collaborator in workshops and conferences related to innovation and digital technologies.

Jose Antonio Gonzalez Martinez

Head of the Department of Information Society, Government of Castilla y León

José Antonio González is Head of the department of Information Society in the Regional Government of Castilla y León (Spain). In his department, they carry out training programmes on digital competences for citizens, especially for those in risk of digital exclusion. They run the network of digital competence centers in Castilla y León, located in the main cities and rural areas, where technology is explained in simple and engaging ways to more tan 90,000 users.

In 2017 they launched tuCertiCyL, the official certification of digital competences for citizens in Castilla y León, as a tool to increase employability opportunities. The Regional Government of Castilla y León also belongs to Association Somos Digital, which gathers 13 networks of digital competence centres in Spain.

Steffen Hess

Head of the Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering

Steffen Hess has been head of the “Digital Society Ecosystems” department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE since January 2020. He obtained his German Diplom degree in Industrial Engineering with a specialization in Computer Science from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern. The department is a result of the strategic evolution of the “Smart Rural Areas” research program, which Hess successfully managed since 2015 and coordinated with the institute’s divisions in terms of content.

In addition, he leads numerous projects for the development of digital services for rural areas. At the heart of these projects is the development of a Digital Ecosystem for rural areas in cooperation with local net-works of citizens, municipalities, and business.

Māra Jākobsone

Vice-President of LIKTA

Māra Jākobsone is Vice-president and Information Society and Digital Skills project manager at Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association (LIKTA). Until 1999 she was working as researcher and assistant professor at the University of Latvia. In 1993 Mara established the first ICT publication in Latvia – journal “Dator Pasaule“ and was editor-in-chief until 2005. She holds a Master degree in Economic Cybernetics (University of Latvia) and Doctoral degree in Economics and Statistics from the Institute of Finances and Economics, St. Petersburg and University of Latvia.

She is experienced in managing research, education and innovation projects at national and European level and has excellent skills in advocacy related to digital society and digital skills development for citizens and SMEs.

Mara is the coordinator of the National Digital Skills Coalition and ALL DIGITAL Week campaign in Latvia.
Mara has been contributing to the development of ALL DIGITAL since 2010, being a Board member since 2010 and Chair of the Board during 2012-2019.

Alexa Joyce

Education & Skills Director, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Microsoft Corporation

Alexa works across the region to drive student skills development, from primary through to higher education. Her role in future-ready skills aims to drive both the soft skills that students need to succeed in work and life, as well as develop deep STEM and technical competences.

Over the last 20 years, Alexa has worked with governments in more than 100 countries across the world in digital transformation in education. She previously led the global strategy at Microsoft for engaging and support education system leaders as they evolve their school systems, and was formerly EMEA Director of Policy, Teaching and Learning, focusing on supporting national device deployments across the region.

Prior to Microsoft, she worked with leading international education organizations: European Schoolnet (the network of 34 Ministries of Education in Europe), UNESCO and OECD. She’s on the advisory board of ALL Digital, a European network for digital inclusion, University College London’s EDUCATE incubator for ed-tech startups and the Institute for Ethical AI in Education.

Achilles Kameas

Professor at Hellenic Open University, Chair of ALL DIGITAL Board

Dr. Eng. Achilles D. Kameas is Professor of Pervasive and Global Computing Systems at Hellenic Open University (HOU). In HOU he serves as Deputy Dean of the School of Science & Technology, Director of the MSc course “Pervasive and Mobile Computing Systems” and Director of the Ubiquitous and Mobile Computing, Quality and Ambient Intelligence Laboratory. He is the Founder and Head of DAISSy (Dynamic Ambient Intelligent Sociotechnical Systems) Research Group and Scientific Coordinator of Research Unit 3 at Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus”.

Achilles serves as Chair of the Board of ALL DIGITAL European network and member of the ESCO Reference Group on ICT Services, the CEN PC428 on e-competences and ICT professionalism, the CEPIS IT Professionalism in Europe, the EADTU Course & Curriculum pool of experts, the ELOT Standardization Committee on Smart Cities, the National Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition and the ReBrain Greece initiative. He has participated in more than 60 EU and national R&D projects (coordinated more than 10 of them), has published more than 200 scientific articles, co-authored more than 10 books and received more than 2000 citations.

Achilles has been teaching formal and non-formal courses on ICT topics for over 25 years, pioneering the development of several MOOCs and blended courses on digital skills. He has contributed to standards EN 16234 (eCompetence Framework) and ISO 37101 (Smart and Sustainable Cities – Greek adaptation), used and evaluated DigComp 2.1 and co-authored the Manifesto for Enhancing Digital Competences across Europe. He is promoting the acquisition of ICT and digital skills by students, professionals and policy makers at regional, national and European levels. His current research interests include peer learning platforms and social systems, STE(A)M education, IoT and smart environments, digital skills, profiling of job roles and flexible learning paths.

Hans Rüdiger Kaufmann

Professor at the University of Applied Management Studies Mannheim

After several international engagements, Rudi was officially ranked Full Professor at the University of Nicosia in February 2013. Since 2016 he has been affiliated with the University of Applied Management Studies Mannheim as Professor and Head of Studies of the BA Management & Leadership.

He is/has been a launching member, board member and Vice President/President (2007-2009) of international research networks and associations such as AMA Global Marketing SIG, CIRCLE International, EuroMed Research Business Institute and the Consumer Brand Relationship Association. He is Associate Editor, a member of the board of several journals. He is Visiting Professor of John Moores University Liverpool, the International Business School of Vilnius University, Visiting Professor of the University of Vitez (Chair of Entrepreneurship) and PhD supervisor for the University of Gloucestershire. He co-initiated and participated in a variety of EU supported research projects and participates as invited speaker on several global occasions.

Sabrina Konzok

Strategic Partnerships Lead at Kiron Open Higher Education

Sabrina Konzok is a driver and innovator in EdTech and Social Entrepreneurship. As Strategic Partnerships Lead at Kiron Open Higher Education, an EdTech non-profit organisation building a learning platform for refugees, she establishes new structures, strategies and partnerships for digital lifelong learning. During the Corona pandemic, she initiated to Kiron talks format with Dr. Dominic Orr. Together, they spoke to digital education experts from around the globe, discussing new trends, challenges and opportunities.

Aiming to build future-proof and self-empowering systems, she builds a social innovation ecosystem for founders in Berlin as a Board Member of the Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany. Before working in Berlin, she chaired the European Youth Network of the Red Cross Red Crescent, combining 1,5 million volunteers from 53 countries. In this context, Sabrina worked on innovating the ways humanitarian aid is delivered and how people train to do so. She holds an M.Sc. in Conflict Resolution and Governance and has studied in Freiburg, Singapore, and Amsterdam.

Roberto Lejarzegi

Digital Competences Consultant at Ibermatica

Working as a consultant in ibermaticadigital.com since 1996, in projects related to eLearning, Innovation and development of Digital Competences in Ikanos Project (Promotion and adoption of European digital competence framework DigComp in the Basque Country) carrying out activities such as design and management of ikanos test, design of a Personal Learning Environment model for ikanos and the Professional Digital Profile model as well as the International Dissemination of the Ikanos project.

Veronica Mobilio

Policy officer, DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, European Commission

Veronica is an educational expert, with specific expertise in digital and entrepreneurship education. She works as policy officer at DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture where she has been contributing to the implementation and update of the Commission’s Digital Education Action Plan.

Previously, she worked as Senior Manager for Education Development at Junior Achievement Europe and, before moving to Brussels, she was a consultant and researcher for several public and private organizations in Italy.

She holds PhD in learning theories and communication sciences. Passionate about evidence-based policymaking, she strongly believes in people empowerment.

Jennifer Nicolay

Project Manager at JOBLINGE

Jennifer Nicolay studied Spanish, Philosophy, Physics and intercultural pedagogics in Cologne and Muenster (Germany) to be a teacher. After 1.5 years of teaching at secondary schools in Spain and Germany, she dedicated her career path to ethics in business and economy. She became chairwoman of an NGO for ethics in economics and worked in an agency as editor for social responsibility topics – focusing on the role of businesses for social changes, challenges and chances in a digitized world.

In 2017, she started working for JOBLINGE where she developed coding workshops and a digital week to sensitize disadvantaged youth for industry 4.0 and the digitization. She is responsible for digital didactics and pedagogics in the newly founded JOBLINGE basecamp in Frankfurt.

William O’Keeffe

Policy Officer at DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission

William O’Keeffe is a Policy Officer at the DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion at the European Commission. He is responsible for promotion and use of DigComp: The European Digital Competence Framework and EntreComp: The European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework. He has experience in policy development in the areas of education, training and employment. He also works on lifelong guidance policy and initiatives on use of technology and digitalisation within education, including Europass.

William is on secondment from the Irish Department of Education where he worked with the Irish ENIC-NARIC, and topics related to quality assurance and learning mobility.

Francesco Palumbo

Full Professor, University of Naples Federico II

Prof. Francesco Palumbo is a full professor of Statistics at the Department of Political Sciences, fellow at NAC laboratory, and he teaches Statistics in the undergraduate degree in Psychology and in the graduate degree in Statistics at the University of Naples Federico II.

From September 2014 to September 2017 he was the head of the degree and of the graduate degree in Psychology at the University of Naples. He has long experience in teaching Statistics in different degree programs, which were mainly focused on behavioural and social sciences (Political sciences, Communication and marketing, Administration of cultural heritage).

From 2014 up to now he is member of the Academic Senate of the University of Naples Federico II, where he is involved in the committee for the education and teaching.

During the past three years he was involved in the projects ENACT and INF@NZIA DIGI.Tales 3.6.

Professor Palumbo main expertise is in multivariate statistics focusing on classification and clustering. He is (co)author of many scientific publications on international journals and books that are mainly focused of the methodological and applicative multivariate statistics.

Yves Punie

Deputy Head of Unit at the European Commission Joint Research Centre

Yves Punie is senior scientist and Deputy Head of Unit at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Seville, Unit Human Capital and Employment. He is leading its research and policy activities on “Digital Learning and Skills”. The research area started in 2005 with the aim to provide evidence-based policy support to the European Commission on harnessing the potential of digital technologies to innovate education and training practices, improve access to lifelong learning and to deal with the rise of new (digital) skills and competences needed for employment, personal development and social inclusion.

Recent work on capacity building for the digital transformation of education and learning, and for the changing requirements for skills and competences has focussed on the development of digital competence frameworks for citizens (DigComp), educators (DigCompEdu), educational organisations (DigCompOrg) and consumers, among others.

Before joining the JRC in 2001, he was interim Assistant Professor at the Free University of Brussels (VUB). He holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences. See the list of publications

Vasilis Rafail

Youth Worker at Connect Your City Network

Vasilis Rafail is a youth worker in Connect Your City Network of Youth Centers. He is specialized in the creation of volunteering, educational and entertaining activities for young people through the usage of non-formal education techniques.

He has more than 5 years of experience in teaching and enhancing soft skills of young people, as, through his participation in many Erasmus+ projects, he has travelled in many countries and has co-developed new tools, methodologies and techniques aiming at young people and youth workers. He has a Bsc in Psychology as well as a formal expertise in Life and Business Coaching.

Currently, he is the project manager of Connect your City’s mobile application, a tool that utilizes digital gamification to turn volunteering into a game.

This digital innovation has drawn the attention of many projects, collaborating organisations and Greek press mentions, while also granting Vasilis a finalist spot in the competition of World of Difference 2020 by Vodafone Institution.

Florian Rampelt

Managing Director of KI-Campus / AI Campus

Florian Rampelt is a Managing Director of AI Campus at Stifterverband in Berlin and Deputy Managing Director of Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD). Prior to this, he was Director of Education at the non-profit start-up Kiron Open Higher Education and research associate at the Center for Teacher Education at the University of Passau. Florian Rampelt studied political science (B.A.), secondary school education (1st state examination), and educational science (M. Ed.).

As a quality assurance expert, he has accompanied numerous accreditation procedures in Germany and Estonia. His research focuses on questions of quality assurance, recognition and strategy development in the context of digital teaching and learning scenarios as well as on future perspectives for the European Higher Education Area.

Paolo Russo

General Secretary at Stati Generali dell’Innovazione

It is difficult for Paolo to give a name to his profession today, because for several years he has been doing a job that does not yet exist. When he tried to honestly answer the questions of the Italian government’s self-assessment tool, the system classified him as an astrologer or magician… it’s innovator’s curse. Certainly, for several years he has been acting as the General Secretary of the Stati Generali dell’Innovazione association in Italy.

Innovating and inventing are his great passions together with cats, mathematics and quantum models, arts and culture, Neil Gaiman’s novels and teaching young people. He feels privileged to belong to the generations who can first explore the new digital dimension of reality. For this reason he co-founded the CRHACK LAB F4D, where he plays with energy to create semantic value, trains young people to the not-yet existing jobs of the invisible digital cities and experiments on the generational transmission of digital cultural heritage.

He has a background as a member of several Italian government’s committees for digital development, and CEO of a few small companies in Italy and in the USA, where he also served as a representative of the State of Delaware for the development of cultural and commercial exchanges with Italy.

Thomas Schmidt

CEO of Helliwood media & education at fjs e.V.

Thomas Schmidt is an expert for digital media and competences. From Berlin (Germany) he has been developing educational initiatives and programmes in the field of digital media with Helliwood media & education at fjs e.V. for 20 years. He brings education and media together and sees himself as an active shaping member of digitalised society.

His mission is to prepare children, young people and their adult companions for life in an increasingly digitalised world and to develop new ways of learning with them. He is regularly present in digital classrooms, conferences and digital learning labs to present successful projects and innovative approaches in the field of digital education to representatives from the community, education, politics and business. As an author, he provides orientation in an increasingly digital society and regularly blogs under the pseudonym @Wapoid

Jutta Schneider

Project manager at Helliwood media & education at fjs e.V.

With a pedagogical science degree, Jutta Schneider has been a project manager and member of the management team at Helliwood media & education at fjs e.V. for 10 years. She concepts, implements and manages educational initiatives and funding projects. Further she is a seminar leader, lecturer, and speaker for educational topics. Thereby she has been supervising the German initiative “Code your life” for 5 years and develops teaching scenarios and materials, e.g., The Turtle Book.

As an expert for inclusive learning, she advises teachers, educators and multipliers in providing inclusive learning scenarios. Her mission is making children’s eyes shine and being a role model for teachers.

Katarzyna Urban

Manager at ECCC Foundation

Katarzyna Urban, PhD, is a member of Social Economy Implementation Expert Group at Regional Social Policy Hub, expert on international education, international experience. She is Professor of European and Regional Development at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University.

At ECCC, she is a manager of DigComp 1.0 and 2.1 Polish translation’s publishing team, a researcher on international strategy to implement and develop DigComp policy and the ECCC standard.

Her research focuses on impact of IT technologies, digital education on health and wellbeing of citizens.

Altheo Valentini

General Manager of EGInA

M.A. in “Publishing, Media and Journalism”, Altheo has been working for more than 15 years as a project manager in the framework of various financing instruments of the European Commission, with a particular focus on digital and social innovation, for which he has founded the European Grants International Academy Srl – EGInA, a training agency in the VET and Adult education sector and a consultancy company in European projects design and implementation.

Sociologist and communicator, Altheo deeply believes in transformative social change! For this reason, in 2016, after having being captured by the magic world of hackathons, he launched the first Social Hackathon Umbria, a 48-hour digital marathon for the co-creation of innovative solutions aimed at solving different societal challenges. Besides seating in the technical committee of the Italian National Coalition for Digital Skills and Jobs (Repubblica Digitale), he is a member of national associations and networks in the field of innovation (General States of Innovation) and digital cultural heritage (DiCultHer) and he is part of the board of some international organizations, including: ALL DIGITAL for the promotion of digital skills, EAQOM for the quality in international mobility projects for training purposes and the Europeana Education Community.

You can find his blogposts and news on adult education in EPALE, the Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe.

Sara Van Damme

e-Inclusion Programme Manager, City of Ghent, Digipolis

Sara Van Damme is the programme manager of Digitaal.Talent@Gent, the local e-inclusion program for the City of Ghent run by Digipolis, reaching over 20,000 people a year. Together with city services, organisations, companies and citizens, her team is building a digitally inclusive Ghent where its citizens can really grasp the opportunities that come with a digital world, instead of being shut out.

Sara has been working on the topic of digital inclusion and digital skills for over 10 years. She leads a team of project managers, has led multiple successful e-inclusion projects herself, is co-author of the book ‘All Digital? – 7 building blocks for a sustainable e-inclusion policy’ and active promoter of lifelong learning, collaboration and digital inclusion.

Fiona von Prónay

Project Lead at JOBLINGE

Fiona von Prónay studied media, culture, and communication in Salzburg, Austria, and London, UK, focusing on media pedagogy in her master’s degree. After 1.5 years of working for a digital agency, she decided to dedicate her career to media education. In 2015 she joined the JOBLINGE umbrella organisation as a project coordinator for the development of a learning app. The app was later awarded with the bitkom delina-award – the innovation award for digital education.

Fiona von Prónay is also responsible for developing and embedding digial learning and STEM projects in the overall initiative as well as industry 4.0 programmes that aim to sensitise young people to digitalisation and qualify them for the resulting changes in the world of work.

Riina Vuorikari

Research Fellow at European Commission JRC

Dr. Riina Vuorikari joined the European Commission’s in-house science service JRC in July 2013. She contributes to research and policy support in the field of “human capital and employment”. Her work focuses on Digital Competence for citizens, among other areas. Her main interest is dealing with issues related to the adoption of new technologies and innovation in education and training.

Dr. Vuorikari has degrees in education (M.Ed in 1998 in Finland) and hypermedia (DEA in 1999 in France). Her PhD, which was completed in 2009, is from the Dutch research school for Information and Knowledge Systems.

See more at: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/person/riina-vuorikari

Nenja Wolbers

Project Manager at Stiftung Digitale Chancen

Since 2013, Nenja Wolbers has been a Project Manager at Digital Opportunities Foundation (Stiftung Digitale Chancen), which represents about 6,000 telecentres in Germany. She is responsible for the development and implementation of various EU funded projects with international consortia with the objective to promote the digital inclusion of marginalized groups. During this time she organised the ALL DIGITAL Week in Germany and other participatory campaigns.

Nenja is an experienced online trainer and creator of online learning units. Nenja holds a Master’s degree in Sociology with specialization in European Societies. She wrote her thesis about the European social integration process, analysing the influence of people’s life experience on their perception of the EU. Seeing the importance of Europeanization, she believes that digital media is one key pillar for Europe to grow further together.

Nenja Wolbers is Vice-Chair of the Board of ALL DIGITAL.

Ryszard Woś

Chairman of the Board, ECCC Foundation

Ryszard Wos is the Chairman of the ECCC Foundation Board. Leader and manager, 15 years in public administration, almost 20 years in non-profit sector, including 10 years in IT certification.

Under his leadership, DigComp (Digital Competence Framework) has been implemented in Poland and is used since 2016.

Several times awarded, including the Knight’s Cross of Polonia Restituta (one of the top Polish oders), by President of Poland, for his merit for digital society development.